The church stands beside the road, it's nothing fancy. No concrete and stained glass cathedral here. The cathedrals being built are of much firmer and stable material than any man can construct. Reformers Unanimous is building on people.

Every Friday night from 7-9 p.m., since October 2002, people have come together at the New Testament Baptist Church, 10491 14th Ave., to rebuild their lives and charge forward to help others. They are members of Reformer's Unanimous, a faith-based program to change destructive pasts and encourage healthy futures.

Diana Garcia has been part of the group for two years. She was a Methamphetamine addict for 10 years prior to entering into the program and has had one relapse.

"No matter where you attempt to get sober, it's going to be difficult," Garcia said. "But RU is like coming home to a family. They are so amazing. Even when I left for awhile, they wouldn't let me go," she smiled, her dark hair shining in the church's light.

After Garcia's husband left the family, she fell apart and left the program to begin using meth again. She said she couldn't understand what she had done wrong and why God allowed her husband to make this kind of choice. But, her family at RU wouldn't let her wallow in self-pity.

Sandra Moseley was one of those who was in the program when Garcia decided to go back to drugs.

"When Diana left I felt my heart rip out," Moseley said. "We are so close. I thought ... how am I going to get through this?"

She got through it by doing what everyone else in the group did, they called Garcia, visited her and let her know, through their actions, they still loved her, as did God, and that she can succeed.

Today Garcia works full-time and is attending West Hills College Lemoore, holding down a 4.0 GPA with hopes of a future in family and criminal law.

"I want to be able to help people," Garcia said.

Once an alcoholic, Jerry Grow, a big man with a bigger heart, is now the program director. He defined the program as being a positive, family-orientated group based on God. It instills success through loving support for people and their families who are living unhappy lifestyles. The program is not a 12-step regime.

"We don't want to know about past failures, we want to know how God is helping you now," Grow said. "People do not stand up and admit they are an addict and then begin talking about all the bad things they did. I've gone through that and, to tell you the truth, it didn't work for me. Alcoholics Anonymous may work for others, but this program did it for me. I don't need to know that someone drank beer through a straw or how many times people have been down and out. We offer a positive future and try to teach people, through God, to change the way they think."

RU starts with the premise that an addiction or destructive lifestyle is not a disease, but a choice.

"You can't choose a disease, but you can make a choice on what actions you take," Grow said.

There are 10 principles they work through.

The first is that you can not change your actions by actions, the only way to change your actions is to change how you think.

"If you think angry thoughts then you will become an angry person," Grow said.

That's why the group meets every Friday night.

"Most addicts look forward to Fridays because they plan to begin partying then," Grow said.

Breaking the Friday and weekend binge is a monumental step forward, it brings the addict to a place where they wake up with their family on Saturday morning instead of with a hangover or in a daze.

The Friday evening meetings include brief talks, videos and other communication for the whole family, with special testimony time and children's space. During the same-gender counseling sessions, participants learn to deal with the nuts and bolts of recovery and can make statements to past events they need to get out. Those statements are not heard before the whole group. What is heard before the whole group is, if someone wants to, the testimonies of success and God's love along with the support of others.

Freddie Catuncan was living on the streets before Garcia approached him with her testimony and care for his life.

"God brought them to me," Catuncan said. "I was literally at the bottom of my life when they came to me."

"I bet you didn't weigh a hundred pounds when you first came through that door," Grow smiled, a tear flowing down his cheek. "I thought how will we work with him?"

Today Freddie lives in the program's men's home and holds down a full-time job.

"It was discouraging for the first few months," Catuncan admitted. "But here people really care. The people here made the Bible so practical in my life. Their impact on you is sobering."

Grow said people involved in the program do not have to be part of the church that hosts it, although many do attend the NTBC. According to Grow there are more than 600 chapters of RA internationally and they all work the same; bringing a personal God to people through deep compassion.

"It's hard to explain," Grow said, "the way this program impacts others. And we aren't successful at times, but when we are we keep them."

As the four of them sat in the small church they kept using the same words: Loving, amazing and healthy, to describe their reformed lives.

This year's program theme is "This Is the Place" and according to four people who have chosen to live in different places, the best place to be is at Reformers Unanimous.

Phone contact may be made to Grow at 707-9547 or just drop by and listen one Friday evening and witness lives changing for the better.

(Dec. 4, 2008)